Employee Free Choice Act

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@spazattak

If they want to unionize - they sign a card. If there are cards from 30%-50% of the workers the employer can require there be an anonymous vote before recognizing their right to bargain. If there’s over 50% the employer doesn’t have a choice. The labor board recognizes them at a federal level and they have the power to bargain without the employer making them vote on it.

Explain this

Pat Connors, principal officer of Teamsters Local 401 in Wilkes-Barre, said unions currently need 30 percent of employees to sign union cards to even get a vote. His union tries to get 50 to 60 percent of employees to sign cards.

“We’ve had places where we got 100 percent. Then, by the time the election comes around, we lose a vote,” Connors said.

Why did these workers say yes on the cards and no on the secret ballot ?

[Furious_Marmot]

@gonzomax

You want your position secret because the company will come after you. It is not so much about fellow employees.

We have a winner!

I would love to have access to collective bargaining in my workplace. I would vote for it in a New York minute. So would every one of my peers whose opinion I have heard. None of us will make our wishes known, however, because we know that we will face retaliation from above. So we remain unorganized.

[Antinor01]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Explain this

Why did these workers say yes on the cards and no on the secret ballot ?

In our office the union organizers were telling people that signing the card didn’t mean they were voting for the union. Just that they were interested. (perhaps not a complete lie, but certainly misleading)

[Furious_Marmot]

@spazattak

since voting’s so fraught with perils, maybe we should just reconsider the whole electoral process then eh?

No one is voting! If they want to unionize - they sign a card. If there are cards from 30%-50% of the workers the employer can require there be an anonymous vote before recognizing their right to bargain. If there’s over 50% the employer doesn’t have a choice. The labor board recognizes them at a federal level and they have the power to bargain without the employer making them vote on it.

The electoral process IS fraught with perils, but it is considerably fairer and freer from coercion with secret balloting than it would be without. How would removing secret balloting decrease ‘peril’?

Signing the card is voting. What else would you call it?
There seems to be a fundamental difference of opinion here. I assert that people sometimes vote ‘yes’ when their vote is subject to review, not because it is their will, but because they fear retaliation. Your comments indicate that you believe that people who vote ‘yes’ in an open system always do so without coercion. Is this a correct assessment of your position?

[spazattak]

@Furious_Marmot

We have a winner!

I would love to have access to collective bargaining in my workplace. I would vote for it in a New York minute. So would every one of my peers whose opinion I have heard. None of us will make our wishes known, however, because we know that we will face retaliation from above. So we remain unorganized.

I will now repeat this for the 4th time. You still get a secret ballot if between 30 and 50% participate in the card-check. Someone needs to be willing to stand up to management or no one will be able to negotiate when you do have the right to bargain. So a third need to sign on. Which shouldn’t be tough if they know their whole shop is going to vote their way with the secret ballot.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@spazattak

Can you describe to me a situation in a shop of 100 workers that results in a shop being unionized against the will of the majority of the workers?

No, because up till now a secret ballot is required.

There are cases where the majority of workers are unionized against their will. In thirty per cent of cases where the employer applied for decertificion, the workers voted against their union.

[Magiver]

@spazattak

since voting’s so fraught with perils, maybe we should just reconsider the whole electoral process then eh?

No one is voting! If they want to unionize - they sign a card. If there are cards from 30%-50% of the workers the employer can require there be an anonymous vote before recognizing their right to bargain. If there’s over 50% the employer doesn’t have a choice. The labor board recognizes them at a federal level and they have the power to bargain without the employer making them vote on it.

You can be coerced into signing the card but protected from retaliation by a secret ballot. You may simply want it voted on so union representatives will stop harassing you every time you drive into work. I’ve been there.

How would like your vote for elected officials posted on the internet?

[spazattak]

@Magiver

You can be coerced into signing the card but protected from retaliation by a secret ballot. You may simply want it voted on so union representatives will stop harassing you every time you drive into work. I’ve been there.

How would like your vote for elected officials posted on the internet?

Seriously… I’m beginning to get short on patience. I need everyone to realize the following FACTS:

1. Card-check is not a vote.
2. No one’s vote is made public. In fact there is no vote if there is over 50% card-check participation.
3. There is still the possibility of a secret ballot if between 30% and 50% of workers participate in the card-check.
4. The secret ballot is something instituted by the EMPLOYER to challenge the bargaining unit’s legitimacy.
5. The only thing changing with the new card-check system is that IF over 50% of workers participate in the card check - there is no longer a NEED for the secret ballot because a majority of the work place has put their names down in support of the bargaining unit.

[spazattak]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

No, because up till now a secret ballot is required.

There are cases where the majority of workers are unionized against their will. In thirty per cent of cases where the employer applied for decertificion, the workers voted against their union.

That is not true. An employer can choose to recognize a bargaining unit without a secret ballot.

[Happy_Lendervedder]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Explain this

Why did these workers say yes on the cards and no on the secret ballot ?

Because once there is a petition for election, the employer can, and usually does, employ an aggressive anti-union campaign, complete with captive-audience meetings, threats of strikes and dues, intimidation, etc. Union busting and prevention is a multi-million dollar per year enterprise-- attornies, PR firms, consultants, etc. are brought in to talk the workers out of a union.

I posted this in the last Free Choice thread that came up. I’ll re-post it here:

@Happy Lendervedder

I’ve been a union organizer for upwards of 5 years now. I can honestly say I have never witnessed or heard about a co-worker or member organizer threatening or coercing someone to sign a card against his or her will. Does it happen? I suspect. However, if unions regularly were putting illegal and unwanted pressure on workers to sign cards, don’t you think more than 12% of the workforce would be unionized right now? Unions-- i.e. their members and their staff-- are not the bullies and thugs we’re made out to be. In fact, most of my co-workers are bleeding-heart pacifists.

With unions’ resources so limited-- and the Bush NLRB so stacked in favor of business-- we can’t afford to waste our time on worksites that don’t really want a union. We aren’t looking to force people to sign cards “just to get a union.” When most unions organize a worksite (and I can’t speak to all unions-- I know there are turds to be found in organized labor), we are looking for people that REALLY want a union. If we threaten people (as chappachula alluded to), we would be slapped with an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) faster than you could say “Unfair Labor Practice.” Not to mention, it’s 10 times easier to decertify a union than it is to certify one; that means if we don’t truly have strong support from the workers, they’ll be gone in a year. Why would we waste our time and resources on a flash in the pan like that?

Finally, right now, workers trying to organize are at a huge disadvantage. Businesses have complete access to their workers, to scare them, fire them and harrass them if they support forming a union. As a union organizer, I’ve got virtually no access to the workers whatsoever, and any access I may have is extremely limited. So, under the current NLRB election process, many workers might support the formation of a union, but they constantly feel like their job is at risk if they support it. Once that 30% of cards is filed with the NLRB, and an election is scheduled, management starts an all-out anti-union campaign where they set out to scare the shit out of the workers. They fire supporters, harrass supporters, tell workers they’ll have to go on strike, tell them that the company will close if they unionize, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on anti-union PR and law firms.

Now, a lot of what they do is illegal, but every company knows that the penalty for breaking the law in this case is merely having to post notices that they broke the law and that they won’t do it again; many guilty companies don’t even post this in areas where their workers are located. And that’s it. No restitution, no re-hiring of fired employees. Union campaigns, contrary to what many in the public seem to think, are stacked heavily in favor of the company. Like I said earlier, if unions were as tough and thuggish as we’re made out to be, always coercing poor Joe Six Pack to sign a card, a hell of a lot more than 12% of the workforce would belong to unions.

If workers don’t want a union, and don’t want to sign a card, they won’t, no matter how much pressure another person puts on them. Knowing that, organizers don’t waste their time with anti-union workers. And going to a 50-percent-plus-one card-check system (spelled out in EFCA) won’t give unions any unfair advantage-- we still won’t have any real access to the workers, and we still can’t force anyone to sign a card (that would be illegal and would ultimately resort the campaign back to an NLRB election). EFCA will, however, neutralize management’s often-times illegal anti-union campaign that takes place prior to an election.

The way things are now, come election day, all the company has to do is bus their anti-union workers to the polling site, and on the flip side, instruct supervisors to make it difficult for known supporters to make it to vote. Happens all the time.

Ultimately, unions aren’t against secret ballots, we’re against ballots that are cast in a system that’s completely stacked to favor management. Right now, a mere 1% of the workforce could cast a ballot in a union election, and decide whether all of the workers there have a union or not. However, under the Employee Free Choice Act, it would require 50% + 1 of ALL workers to certify the union. To me that sounds more democratic than having an election with 200 people show up out of a unit of 2000.

[Furious_Marmot]

@spazattak

I will now repeat this for the 4th time. You still get a secret ballot if between 30 and 50% participate in the card-check. Someone needs to be willing to stand up to management or no one will be able to negotiate when you do have the right to bargain. So a third need to sign on. Which shouldn’t be tough if they know their whole shop is going to vote their way with the secret ballot.

I will now repeat this for the fourth time. The objection is not to the 30-50% card check situation, the worker is protected by a secret ballot in that case. The problem is that there is no protection against coercion in the 51-100% card check situation. What is the objection to the secret ballot in that case? Is there no possibility of coercion?

How is standing up to management beforehand, when there is no union protection the same thing as negotiating with them once that protection is in place? The first is extremely dangerous, the second is considerably less so.

[spazattak]

@Furious_Marmot

I will now repeat this for the fourth time. The objection is not to the 30-50% card check situation, the worker is protected by a secret ballot in that case. The problem is that there is no protection against coercion in the 51-100% card check situation. What is the objection to the secret ballot in that case? Is there no possibility of coercion?

How is standing up to management beforehand, when there is no union protection the same thing as negotiating with them once that protection is in place? The first is extremely dangerous, the second is considerably less so.

Where’s the coercion coming in? Do the numbers. Using a 100 worker force - if there’s 30 - they get the secret ballot. If that 30 isn’t confident in the secret ballot and wants to coerce some folks to push it over 50%, they need 21 cards. That means coercing 21 of the remaining 70 people in the work force. That’s 30 against 70. 30 people bullying 21 into signing a stupid card. On top of that those 30 just broke the law. They just guaranteed their union gets de-certified upon challenge because you now have 21 witnesses to coercion. You seriously think this is going to happen when those 21 have the other 50 on their side?

[Furious_Marmot]

@spazattak

Seriously… I’m beginning to get short on patience. I need everyone to realize the following FACTS:

1. Card-check is not a vote.
2. No one’s vote is made public. In fact there is no vote if there is over 50% card-check participation.
3. There is still the possibility of a secret ballot if between 30% and 50% of workers participate in the card-check.
4. The secret ballot is something instituted by the EMPLOYER to challenge the bargaining unit’s legitimacy.
5. The only thing changing with the new card-check system is that IF over 50% of workers participate in the card check - there is no longer a NEED for the secret ballot because a majority of the work place has put their names down in support of the bargaining unit.

1. Card check is a vote. You may vote ‘yes’ and expose yourself to retaliation by the employer. You may avoid coercion from the employer by not voting at all, this exposes you to retaliation from pro-organization workers. A non-vote is functionally equivalent to a ‘no’ vote since the threshold percentage is based on the total number of workers. A non-vote has power in this system, unlike in the electoral system.
2. Every ‘yes’ vote is made public because the employer may review the cards. This opens the system to coercion bythe employer.
3. Agreed.
4. Agreed.
5. There is still a NEED, because without a secret ballot it is impossible to determine whether the worker was coerced to vote ‘yes’ with his signature or ‘no’ with his non-participation.

I ask again why are open votes superior to secret votes?

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@Happy_Lendervedder

Because once there is a petition for election, the employer can, and usually does, employ an aggressive anti-union campaign, complete with captive-audience meetings, threats of strikes and dues, intimidation, etc. Union busting and prevention is a multi-million dollar per year enterprise-- attornies, PR firms, consultants, etc. are brought in to talk the workers out of a union.

I don’t know how a worker can be intimadated to vote against his wishes if his wishes are not known. What’s wrong with ther “education” that the employer provides to make their case? So what if they get talked out of a decision. Are you suggesting the worker is stupid ?

[Furious_Marmot]

@spazattak

Where’s the coercion coming in? Do the numbers. Using a 100 worker force - if there’s 30 - they get the secret ballot. If that 30 isn’t confident in the secret ballot and wants to coerce some folks to push it over 50%, they need 21 cards. That means coercing 21 of the remaining 70 people in the work force. That’s 30 against 70. 30 people bullying 21 into signing a stupid card. On top of that those 30 just broke the law. They just guaranteed their union gets de-certified upon challenge because you now have 21 witnesses to coercion. You seriously think this is going to happen when those 21 have the other 50 on their side?

Yes, I seriously think it can.

[Antinor01]

@Happy_Lendervedder

Because once there is a petition for election, the employer can, and usually does, employ an aggressive anti-union campaign, complete with captive-audience meetings, threats of strikes and dues, intimidation, etc. Union busting and prevention is a multi-million dollar per year enterprise-- attornies, PR firms, consultants, etc. are brought in to talk the workers out of a union.

And also as I mentioned above, some union reps lie and there are employees that for whatever reason simply don’t understand that signing the card means they are voting for the union. Unless they make union membership optional for each employee or have the cards setup with a yes and a no option on the union I’ve got to support having a secret ballot so that every employee can make their voice heard.

[spazattak]

@Furious_Marmot

1. Card check is a vote. You may vote ‘yes’ and expose yourself to retaliation by the employer. You may avoid coercion from the employer by not voting at all, this exposes you to retaliation from pro-organization workers. A non-vote is functionally equivalent to a ‘no’ vote since the threshold percentage is based on the total number of workers. A non-vote has power in this system, unlike in the electoral system.
2. Every ‘yes’ vote is made public because the employer may review the cards. This opens the system to coercion bythe employer.
3. Agreed.
4. Agreed.
5. There is still a NEED, because without a secret ballot it is impossible to determine whether the worker was coerced to vote ‘yes’ with his signature or ‘no’ with his non-participation.

I ask again why are open votes superior to secret votes?

1. A vote means choosing from a series of distinct options. A non-signature isn’t the same as a ‘no’ by any means. It might mean ‘I won’t sign a card, but I’ll vote for it when it comes in secret ballot’. There is no distinction between this stance and they ‘hah! unions can suck my balls!’ stance. Therefore it is not a vote because ‘yes’ and ‘no’ aren’t the only options.
2. The card check is there as a way to get the ball rolling for union organization. You need a certain amount to sign up before you can proceed to the next step. It isn’t a vote. It’s a signed statement by an individual voicing their positive support for an employee organization. A statement != a vote. You can extrapolate votes from those statements if you were so inclined, but that doesn’t change the fact that the statement isn’t a vote. I can say that support gay marriage. But that doesn’t mean that I voted against prop 8 in california. You can extrapolate that I would have from my statement, but my statement isn’t the same thing as a vote.

[spazattak]

@Furious_Marmot

Yes, I seriously think it can.

How? And then how do these people not go to their employer with their concerns? Or the police department? Or the labor board?

[Magiver]

@spazattak

Where’s the coercion coming in? Do the numbers. Using a 100 worker force - if there’s 30 - they get the secret ballot. If that 30 isn’t confident in the secret ballot and wants to coerce some folks to push it over 50%, they need 21 cards. That means coercing 21 of the remaining 70 people in the work force. That’s 30 against 70. 30 people bullying 21 into signing a stupid card. On top of that those 30 just broke the law. They just guaranteed their union gets de-certified upon challenge because you now have 21 witnesses to coercion. You seriously think this is going to happen when those 21 have the other 50 on their side?

The coercion comes from the union itself.

[spazattak]

@Magiver

The coercion comes from the union itself.

There is no union until the employer recognizes one. If they’re bullying multiple people, that’s multiple people who are then witnesses against the union. Coercion is against the law - they can go to prison for it. Not to mention get the union de-certified. The consequences outweigh the benefits. It’s just not a realistic expectation.